1. (C) On October 10, P/E Counselor met with Carolyn
McDonald, Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
Trade's Disarmament Division, Deputy Director Jillian
Dempster, and Policy Officer Raylene Liufalani regarding the
USG position on New Zealand's draft resolution on de-alerting
of nuclear forces (reftel B). McDonald had received a report
from the New Zealand Embassy in Washington on the October 5
meeting between Acting ISN DAS Andrew Semmel and
representatives of the New Zealand and Swedish Embassies
(reftel A).

2. (C) P/E Counselor provided the draft points to McDonald
and urged that New Zealand not take the draft resolution
further. McDonald responded point for point using the same
arguments as the New Zealand Embassy had in its meeting with
Semmel; the resolution is balanced and does not target any
nuclear state, de-alerting was one of 13 steps outlined by
the 2000 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference,
and New Zealand felt there was adequate support from other
countries to move the resolution forward. She added that
Nigeria, Switzerland, and Chile had joined with New Zealand
and Sweden to support the resolution. New Zealand, continued
McDonald, had taken comments and altered (slightly) some
wording in the draft resolution. The revised draft has been
provided to P-5 members, she said, noting that the draft went
out to regional coordinators in New York on October 10.
There is an NGO meeting scheduled for next Tuesday in New
York as well. Open consultations on the draft resolution
will begin next week.

3. (C) McDonald allowed that the USG has made progress in
the area of modifying its rapid reaction posture, and
welcomed the USG steps outlined in the draft points provided.
Nevertheless, McDonald said that New Zealand and other
like-minded countries believe that not all nuclear weapons
states have done what the U.S. has done, and all could make
further progress to reduce the operational status of nuclear
arsenals and increase transparency. P/E Counselor argued
that the USG cannot accept measures that would affect its
readiness posture and undermine its deterrence capabilities
because of the proposed risk of accidental use. Any
suggestion that the USG has lowered its response capacity
could be equally dangerous, and the USG already has taken a
number of steps and put into place safeguards to mitigate the
scenarios outlined in the resolution.

4. (C) McDonald gave no indication that the GNZ would
rethink its support for the resolution; she underscored that
all the Cabinet Ministers had endorsed the draft resolution
before Minister of Defense and Trade Philip Goff announced
the proposed resolution in late August.
KEEGAN

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